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If you like Ritamulse, PolyAquol 2W (already mentioned above) would be a good alternative - it also gives you that powdery effect you like and it doesn’t cause soaping. I would also try to increase the amount of oil, and Sepinov EMT 10 if you still don’t achieve the desired viscosity. If your gel was sticky, it can be also caused by 1% panthenol.

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Plantasens® Emulsifier HP 30 by Clariant, Ritamulse SCG.

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@PhilGeis Thanks for the articles. I found a link to the Schnittger paper in this discussion: https://www.researchgate.net/post/When-should-I-add-preservatives-in-W-O-Emulsions-heating-or-cooling

But why exactly did they not find bacteria in the product that was handled with the contaminated hand? 

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@Stanley Why is the price range so wide? Even the lowest price is a bit high. Do elderly have to pay for insulin?

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I don’t see a big difference in citrus oils, rather it concerns floral oils. And I can also notice that the scent can change during storage.
Speaking of possible irritation, I would point out that essential oils are more likely to cause side effects. Just to avoid the situation that your customer chooses fragrance oil following your advice, and then it turns out that the fragrance oil causes irritation, it is also possible.

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Thanks @PhilGeis, interesting article. Now I understand why the challenge test alone may be insufficient.
Packaging seems to be crucial. Earlier, it seemed to me that first of all the customer should not have access to the product, as it is for example when the product is in a jar. Now I can see there are more problems. For example, I noticed that I regularly forget to close packaging with a disc top closure. And if the product comes with a dropper, sometimes in a hurry I just put it back and don’t screw it on tightly. Not always, but for sure it happened to me 1-2 times and I’m probably not the only person in the world who did it.
Does it make sense to include it somehow in the challenge test? For example, leave the disc top open for a day? Or a bottle that is not tightly closed. Would it make any sense?

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- if it is a leave-on product, then when using essential oils you will likely exceed the allowable amount of allergens and will have to list them in the EU
- the scent of the same essential oil from the same manufacturer may differ between batches, sometimes these differences are really very noticeable.

Personally, I don’t like products whose scent is created with essential oils, it’s irritating and too intense for me.

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@PhilGeis Could you please say something more about “the standard of consumer use”? I know that some companies, when ordering clinical tests, ask for the product to be returned after the test is completed by the probands. Do you mean testing such “leftovers” or more testing various combinations and concentrations of the preservative and checking them for efficiency after 1,3,7 days in laboratory? If the latter, is the complete elimination after three days or seven days satisfactory?

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@PhilGeis What do you mean by “the standard of consumer use”? How is something like this done?

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Writing about the standard, I meant of course the types of preservatives, not the testing method, I’m aware that they perform something more than USP 51. The conclusion was that maybe just by performing appropriate tests and taking appropriate precautions at each stage of production, it is possible to create safe and reliable product without parabens and formaldehyde donors. At least, I came to this conclusion by analyzing new products from big companies and the fact that none of those I know uses parabens and formaldehyde donors anymore (in new products).

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Even looking at the marketing brochures, not necessarily copper peptides, but peptides in general, the results are not very impressive. A 10% decrease in wrinkle depth or a 10% increase in skin smoothness is not a big difference and I think it can be easily achieved by comparing a weak cream without humectants with a product that contains 2% glycerin. Peptide solution usually contains 50- 75% glycerin and the use level of peptides is 2-3%. It’s like comparing a cream with glycerin vs. without glycerin. Another example, reducing the volume of bags under the eyes by 3%. Maybe someone just got some sleep.

Here you can find some information on copper peptides:
https://www.pharmawell.at/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/TDS_Neodermyl_wirkstoff_en.pdf

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@ketchito Everything I described was about local brands (I’m not from US). Sometimes it’s hard to specify what I mean saying big / small company, as I wrote, they are definitely not companies like Unilever, but if they sell their products in several or several dozen countries, they are also not small. Let’s say they are medium. Maybe they only do a basic test, like the USP 51, I don’t know that. But I’m pretty sure that they do at least this test.

It’s not that someone wants to use natural preservatives. If you use Phenoxyethanol, then you don’t really want to be natural. It’s more about how these cosmetics are tested. If you can use a poor preservative, you pass the tests, and then the product is recalled, it’s pretty obvious that the test is not reliable.

I follow new products released by big companies quite closely and I haven’t seen a new skin care product with parabens or formaldehyde donors in the last year, so I would say that the largest companies are adapting to the “new standards”. Maybe it means that such preservation systems are good enough? 

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Companies usually have a division into conditioners and masks. They have similar ingredients, the masks have a thicker and richer texture and probably a greater amount of conditioning ingredients. Below is a photo of a conditioner and mask from the same company, maybe it will be helpful in some way.
Usually they recommend keeping the conditioner shorter - 1-2 minutes, and the mask 5-7 minutes.
Pre-wash treatment is a rare product, usually it is an oil or a mask with a heavy consistency.

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I wonder if it is possible for peptides to really work if they are usually sold as a 0.1% solution and such solution is added to the product at 2-3% (at best).

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I don’t know the statistics, but I’m sure the failure rate is low. I follow the local market and nowadays hardly anyone uses parabens and formaldehyde donors, except from companies focused on selling cosmetics in pharmacies.
Other companies, even the large ones (I mean companies selling their cosmetics throughout the country in the most popular retailers, of course they are not comparable to the largest companies from the US) mainly use Sodium Benzoate with Potassium Sorbate or Phenoxyethanol with Ethylhexylglycerin.
At the moment, I have never found a cosmetic that would be preserved with anything other than a ready-to-use blend. I’m convinced that these companies do the challenge test because that test is very cheap here and is for sure checked during the inspection.

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Many ingredients that are sold as a blend only have a component range, if I use a few at 0.5%, I can’t sort them out accurately if the component is in the range 1-5%.
Many of the ingredients can be considered marketing products even when used in large amounts. For me it is enough if companies have to prove the results they claim.

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I don’t know why someone can order a 5 g sample, after all, the cost is still ingredients + packaging, which are the same for normal products, or even lower. It just looks like malice.

I wouldn’t make a sample.

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I would like to know how big brands plan to convert to natural given limited resources. When they need one natural ingredient, in practice they will need the whole farm for themselves.

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I believe “it would be cheaper” part could have been painful given how cheap the product is. Especially since it was just one sample, where doing 20 would probably take the same time and then it could be effective and justified. But one sample? They could take one from the shelf. Even if they did want to save money, they could have skipped “it would be cheaper”. And since it was the person managing the people, he/she should predict how this might be perceived.

But again, people may have different opinions, but it’s your job and life, so you should trust your intuition and judgment.

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Thanks @MarkBroussard @Graillotion
@Graillotion Yes, I’ve always done it this way too, but for larger amount, I guess it could be problematic…

I made three samples. In the first sample, I still don’t know what exactly I did wrong, after I couldn’t see the “balls” anymore, I kept mixing for 5 minutes (probably too short). After half an hour, the pH increased by 0.1. I checked later in the morning and there was a total increase in pH of 0.7 Then I did two more samples, after that the solution looked uniform, I continued to mix for 20-30 minutes and there is no increase after 24 hours. So I guess it worked 

But I have a second problem. If I add Euxyl pe 9010 after dissolving the hyaluronic acid, the solution is cloudy, whitish. It is not very visible, but it is definitely not transparent, and it should be. I managed to get a transparent solution by mixing Euxyl with propanediol, then I added water, and finally hyaluronic acid. But if I do it in reverse order and add euxyl at the end it remains cloudy even after long stirring. I even tried to heat the solution but it doesn’t help at all. Why is this happening?

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I skipped the point of what I meant - and I meant that even if others would find that strange tasks were okay or that they did it too, you shouldn’t be influenced by it and just decide for yourself how you want to act.

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Sorry to read that. Don’t get me wrong, but you have already judged it yourself, and it doesn’t matter if you find a lot of descriptions of similar situations about someone having questionable / strange tasks to do.

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PhilGeis said:

 Contamination and they sue each other.

And who won in these lawsuits?

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Perry said:

Has there ever been a chemical that developed a bad reputation but was then rehabilitated? I can’t think of any examples.

I have a theory that formaldehyde releasers will come back into favor. Because most consumers do not know exactly what ingredients belong to this group and are not able to indicate them in the composition, unlike parabens.

Sometimes I wondered why companies that use parabens do not conduct information campaigns in which they would explain that their products are safe. But marketing based on the fact that you have to convince people that your products don’t cause cancer and people don’t have to worry about it seems rather off-putting.

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I was just trying to dissolve it. The “balls of HA” did show up, but they dissolved very slowly. I wonder if maybe this pH increase was due to the HA being 90% dissolved, so that it wasn’t readily noticeable that it wasn’t completely hydrated. But I don’t know if this would be able to increase the pH by 1. On the other hand, the problem arose when the HA was changed to one with a higher molecular weight.